Federal Building Is Evacuated Because of Suspicious Package

Several hundred people were evacuated from the U.S. Transportation Department headquarters building in downtown Washington today while police and firefighters investigated a suspicious package that turned out to be harmless, authorities said.

The two-hour evacuation, which began about noon, was triggered by the discovery of an unattended cardboard box in a second-floor bathroom of the building, in the 1200 block of New Jersey Avenue SE, D.C. fire department spokesman Alan Etter said. He said authorities ordered the building cleared after noticing a strong odor of diesel fuel coming from the box.

He said the small box apparently had been soaked in fuel but was empty. How it came to be in the bathroom was not immediately clear, he said.